Canadian Drone Startup Aims To Plant 1 Billion Trees By 2028
Mayukh Saha, Truth Theory
Waking Times
People all over the world are looking for ways to reverse or at least slow down the climate crisis. Many governments and corporations are putting in immense efforts to plant trees- a step sure to help the planet. This Canadian company too has a goal of its own- planting 1 billion trees by the year 2028! And their weapon of choice? Drones.
Flash Forest, a start-up based in Toronto, Canada has plans to use a fleet of drones that will be specifically made for this task. The aerial drones will be designed such that they will be able to plant the trees 10x faster than humans. Prototypes have been tested since the beginning of 2019 and the drones have successfully planted thousands of trees in Ontario.
The drones plant pre-germinated seed pods and the cost stands at a meagre 50 cents for each sapling. Planting trees using human labour would cost four times this amount and imagine the total cost of planting 1 billion trees!
The company will be using at least 8 species of trees to make the ecosystems diverse. They even launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the project. And they managed to raise $10,000 within a day of the campaign launch.
The project will take off in April 2020 and Flash Forest plans to have at least 150,000 trees planted by the drones before the year ends.
There have been other such efforts to plant trees with the help of drones. But Flash Forest is the first company in Canada to take up such a project, says Angelique Ahlstrom their advisor.
http://youtu.be/XsYP30KmCXc
Ahlstrom explained that the goal of planting 1 billion trees is to create a measurable impact to mitigate climate change in the coming years. This would also combat the loss of biodiversity and deforestation happening on a global scale. The Canadian government has announced its plan of planting 2 billion trees before the next decade ends and Flash Forest is confident that its plan of using drones to plant a billion trees will greatly help achieve this federal goal.
*This article (Canadian Drone Startup Aims To Plant 1 Billion Trees By 2028) was originally posted at Truth Theory and is re-posted here with permission.**